I believe it was Jean Giraudoux who first said, "Only the mediocre are always at their best."

Barack Obama was supposed to be the best, the very best, and yet he is always, reliably, consistently mediocre. His speech on oil was no better or worse than his speech on race. Yet the Obammyboppers who once squealed with delight are weary of last year's boy band. At the end of the big Oval Office address, Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews and the rest of the MSNBC gang jeered the president. For a bewildered Obama, it must have felt like his Ceausescu balcony moment. Had they caught up with him in the White House parking lot, they'd have put him up against the wall and clubbed him to a pulp with Matthews' no-longer-tingling leg.

So what? He always "disappoints." What would have been startling would have been if he hadn't "disappointed." His eve-of-election rally for Martha Coakley "disappointed" the Massachusetts electorate so much they gave Ted Kennedy's seat to a Republican. His speech for Chicago's Olympic bid "disappointed" the Oslo committee so much they gave the games to Pyongyang, or Ouagadougou, or any city offering to build a stadium with electrical outlets incompatible with Obama's prompter. Be honest, guys, his inaugural address "disappointed," too, didn't it? Oh, in those days you still did your best to make the case for it. "He carries us from meditative bead to meditative bead, and invites us to contemplate," wrote Stanley Fish in The New York Times. "There is a technical term for this kind of writing  parataxis, defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as 'the placing of propositions or clauses one after the other without indicating ... the relation of co-ordination or subordination between them.'"

My colleague Rich Lowry suggested the other day that most people not on the Gulf coast aren't really that bothered about the spill, and that Obama has allowed himself to be blown off course entirely unnecessarily. There may be some truth to this: For most of America, this is a Potemkin crisis. But what better kind to trip up a Potemkin leader?

I wouldn't say that. It's on the lips of everyone I talk to, and I'm far from the gulf.

We may not be living the 'immediacy' of the catastrophe as those on the gulf are, but we will be affected as well. And we are bothered.

When he did get specific, he sounded faintly surreal. "As we speak, old factories are reopening to produce wind turbines, people are going back to work installing energy-efficient windows..." Energy-efficient windows? That's a great line  if Obama's auditioning to play himself on "Saturday Night Live" parodies.

And hang on, isn't this the same guy who was promising to start "kicking ass" just a few days ago? You may find yourself recalling the moment in the film "In And Out" when Kevin Kline is trying to master the "How To Be Manly" audiotape and accidentally says "What an interesting window treatment."

Memo to Secretary Rodham Clinton: Do you find yourself of a quiet evening with a strange craving for chicken dinners and county fairs in Iowa and New Hampshire, maybe next summer? Need one of those relaunch books to explain why you're getting back in the game in your country's hour of need?

...this administration was supposed to be the new technocracy  cool, calm and credentialed chaps who would sit down, use their mighty intellects to provide a rigorous, post-partisan, forensic analysis of the problem, and then break for their Vanity Fair photo shoot."

"The president directed his Nobel Prize-winning Head of Meetings to assemble a meeting to tackle the challenge of mobilizing the assembling of the tackling of the challenge mobilization, at the end of which they directed BP to order up some new tackle and connect it to the thingummy next to the whachamacallit. Thank you, Mr. President. That and $4.95 will get you a venti oleaginato at Starbucks."

...and the last paragraphs -- I won't spoil the fun -- are just too deliciousl

Memo to Secretary Rodham Clinton: Do you find yourself of a quiet evening with a strange craving for chicken dinners and county fairs in Iowa and New Hampshire, maybe next summer? Need one of those relaunch books to explain why you're getting back in the game in your country's hour of need?

"It Takes A Spillage."

Ping to knews_hound! One of Mark's finest!

20
posted on 06/18/2010 12:35:27 PM PDT
by jellybean
(Bookmark http://altfreerepublic.freeforums.org/index.php for when FR is down)

Energy efficient windows, windmills, 7$ a gallon gas, gas wells relocating to South America, get ready to line up on odd and even days to buy gas that you can’t afford to go to your soon to be non-existent job and on your way home, stop at Wal-mart and support the Chinese who paid off the Clintons to get your jobs. Good job, Dimmies

You know, since I read “Dreams from My Father” in 2007 until now, I have been throwing up a little in my mouth every time I hear another superlative about this affirmative action junkie. He’s the smartest, most intelligent, best writer since Lincoln. I really hate listening over and over again to people who give this kind of credit where credit isn’t due.

Einstein was a genius. Lincoln was perhaps inspired. Jefferson was gifted. Franklin was innovative. Beethoven was creative. Michelangelo was amazing...

Those I agree with. A few more articles like this one in his portfolio and Mark Steyn will gain his own place in the pantheon...Obama...he is not now nor never was fit to be the custodian of that building.

Recognize and reward the true genius, creative, innovator. Please don’t cheapen these citations by giving them to the undeserving. How do you think the Nobel Peace Prize became such a joke?

"I wouldn't say that. It's on the lips of everyone I talk to, and I'm far from the gulf. We may not be living the 'immediacy' of the catastrophe as those on the gulf are, but we will be affected as well. And we are bothered. "

I agree. I'm in Pennsylvania, and people here are very upset about it. My hair stylist is collecting clippings and shipping them off to make absorbent booms, and people are talking about the horrible impact, contaminated seafood, dead birds and overall mess. It's just one more thing that has reasonable people mad at government in general and him in particular. BP isn't getting off easy either.

No one involved should get off easy. Yet I fear too much anger is directed at BP and ignores the very heavy role the government has played (or failed to play, perhaps). It’s not just that they’ve dragged their feet, but that they are implicit in the requirement for having to drill that deep to begin with.

They were waiting to hear in this speech that BP would be destroyed, the troops be commandeered to the coast and people were being arrested. When they didnt, their radical bloodlust was angry.

Some liberal disappointment was due to the increasing body of evidence relating to the President's incompetence. This was among only the relative sane liberals, however.

Among the insane wing of the Democrat party -- about half of them, it would appear -- the source of their disappointment was as you say.

Their Messiah failed to a.) seize BP and b.) shut down the rest of the oil industry (he only snuffed the deepwater offshore business). You can read their comments on some blogs and articles. They wanted the supply of petroleum to dry up -- so we would be forced "to go green and save the planet."

I suppose they all already have their bicycles, their wood stoves and eat cold tofu.

No one involved should get off easy. Yet I fear too much anger is directed at BP and ignores the very heavy role the government has played (or failed to play, perhaps). Its not just that theyve dragged their feet, but that they are implicit in the requirement for having to drill that deep to begin with.

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